Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Coming out of Arkansas, Me and We find ourselves making miles toward Memphis, TN. Having to make up some time lost in New Orleans with the flat, there was one spot I just wanted to hit and of course it is a National Landmark.

Sun Records was founded in 1952 by Sam Phillips renting a place on Union Street. Sun Records covered the full range of artists for the period, including gospel, blues, country and boogie. In 1954 a star in the making called Elvis wandered into Sam's place and the world of music changed. Following Elvis, came Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich and Conway Twitty.

Now the above picture was taken with me standing in the street with We saying, "Hey can't you read". This isn't the first time I have ignored signs like that and it will not be the last time.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

As MeAsWe and Me meandered our way from Vicksburg heading for Arkansas Post this treasure chest popped up on the GPS. Treasure chests are the various National Landmarks that I had downloaded to the unit as part of the routes and waypoints for our trip. Not really knowing what this particular LM was, I hit the find button, found it in the list and routed ourselves to this spot via the shortest route.

We found ourselves out in the middle of no-where on the back country dirt roads of Arkansas. The roads were packed dirt road with some loose gravel on top; I kept saying (to myself of course) how much I prefer black topped roads. The views were mostly rural and low crops.

About 125 miles from Vicksburg, we find ourselves making a left off AR RT1. I stop because the unpaved road goes up and over a set of rail road tracks. We have come this far out of the way, I was not turning back. I release the clutch, apply some throttle and we climb up and over the tracks and down to the road leading to what seemed like the middle of a farm field. The road on the other side of the tracks is comprised of dusty dirt with larger size gravel mixed in. Not deep gravel, but deep enough that it gives me some concern. I even thought about turning back, but we were almost there, well at least I thought we were. The road was straight to a spot surrounded by trees about ½ miles away.

We arrive and dismount; I still don’t know what this site is all about. I push my thru the line of trees to …

A bit closer...

It hits me where we are and it hits hard. Just before we left we watched a movie from Netflix, American Pastime, about a American Japanese family who were dislodged (my words) from their home in Los Angeles to one of several internment camps in the US during WWII. It must have been fate to have watched that movie (and I didn't fall asleep during it either, a common thing for me ), otherwise I would not have know the significance of this site. That night in the hotel, one of the first things I did was log onto the pute and look up info about Rohwer.

Here are some more pictures followed by a brief history from Wikipedia

Rohwer Relocation Camp was constructed in the late summer and early fall of 1942 as a result of Executive Order 9066 (February 19, 1942). Under this order, over 110,000 Japanese Americans and their immigrant parents were forcibly removed from the three Pacific Coast States—California, Oregon, and Washington. In all, ten camps were established in desolate sites, all chosen for their distance from the Pacific Coast. Over 10,000 evacuees passed through Rohwer during its existence, and over two thirds of these were American citizens. The monuments found within the camp's cemetery are perhaps the most poignant record of this time.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Today I was on my way out for lunch at Wendy's to have my usual chili and plain baked potato. Supposedly this is healthy and I am somewhat a creature of habit when it comes to food. My usual routine includes contemplating which magazine I am going to read (look at the pictures)as I spoon the chili onto the baked potato. It could be RoadRunner or MCN or Rider or one of the catalogs I recently received in the mail. It is a break from the constant cut and paste accounting world that I live in during the work week. Today I realized I have read all the rags in the back seat of my car. I had nothing to read. I even finished the most recent AARP rag that was sent to me (I hate to admit, but this had some interesting stuff).

Realizing this before I got to Wendy's, I headed for Borders to see what I could find. I decided it was time to combine some education with the National Park tours, National Landmarks and National Register of Historic Place chasing I have been doing.

I bought an American History book. Wow, I am not sure what this says about me or where this will eventually end up, but it is consistent with my posting of Landmarks at Waymark.com. While the Landmarks give me places to go and neat roads to get to these off the beaten path places, I also derive pleasure from posting these WM's and reading about where I have been. Here's the book that jumped off the shelves at me.

What did I learn today, well syphilis was not brought to Europe by the early adventurers such as Ponce or Chris. I didn't even know that, that might have been true. I can't wait for lunch tomorrow.